Doogan’s Queue for the week of April 22, 2014

I’m not kidding kids, this month is really coming down as one of the more disappointing months for releases in a while. It was bound to happen – April tends to be a stinker. And I’m not super sure why. It’s not like nothing of interest comes out, but it’s just not been a huge month in my mind. There are a few titles of interest, so let’s look at those. [Read on here…]

First up...

Barefoot – Evan Rachel Wood and Scott Speedman star in the new film by Andrew Fleming. Speedman stars as a slacker trust fund kid who gets into some trouble and is cut off and has to volunteer at a psych hospital. He then tries to con his family into believing he’s mended his ways to make his way into their good graces and passes off a beautiful patient he’s met as his girlfriend. The magical carefree beautiful chick who betters the lives of handsome wayward white men strikes again, huh? looks cute though and Fleming does well with these types of stories so it’s looking like a rental at least.

Bettie Page Reveals All – This will be a no brainer for me. I’m a huge Page fan, and this looks like a solid doc, so join me if you will and show this one some love.

Big Bad Wolves – Regardless of the heavy praise given this one by Quentin Tarantino, Wolves is a solid thriller and simply a well-made film. If your taste skew darker, you will really enjoy this.

Madea’s Neighbors From Hell – This is a filmed version of a new Tyler Perry play. Not a huge fan of Perry’s films, TV shows or plays, but you have to give him props – he knows how to capitalize on media and it takes balls to release a plan onto DVD/Blu-ray.

Master of the House – This one comes from Criterion. A silent era comedy from Carl Theodor Dreyer – color my interest piqued.

Riot In Cell Block 11 – From Criterion comes this little known Don Siegel film shot on-location at Folsom with real guards and prisons as extras. Siegel would return to prison later in his career armed with Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz.

The Pawnbroker – Sidney Lumet’s brilliant character study starring Rod Steiger (who received an Oscar nom for this performance) gets the remastered Blu-ray treatment from Olive Films. No extras, but audio and video quality is spectacular.

The Spectacular Spider-Man: The Complete Series Set – In time for the new movie, the actually pretty good 2008/2009 animated Spidey series gets a complete two season set. If you’re a fan of Spider-Man, give this show a chance. It borrows heavily from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic universe, but it tries to bring in the original Spidey flavor as well.

Trials of Muhammad Ali – This DVD only doc shows us Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali at that point in his life when he made the choice to stand up to the government right when he was at the top of his career and the effects that decision had on him professionally and personally.

And finally...

Sorcerer – William Friedkin (who, by my estimation, hasn’t made a bad film and is due for a renaissance) remade Wages of Fear and it kicked so much ass doing it, most of the film world had no idea what to do with it. All these years later, it’s being recognized as the masterpiece it was always destined to be. Lost in the Star Wars shuffle in 1977, all previous releases of this film on home media made it look like a mess. Thankfully this new Blu-ray, featuring a transfer overseen by Friedkin himself, gets it right and then some. Trust me, if you’re not familiar with this film, go ahead and buy it now. You won’t be disappointed. That is in no way a guarantee, so don’t look for me to return your cash if you have no taste.

No huge titles this week, except Sorcerer of course, but there are two incredible documentaries, a couple of restored classics, a modern thriller worth its salt and a play – so it’s nothing to sneeze at. Come back next week where we can close out this month together. No surprise, it’s also a bit lame-o.

If you want to check out these of other titles, be sure to do so through Amazon by using the links above. It’s fun and it keeps us open for business.

About Todd Doogan

Todd Doogan has written about film, Blu-ray and DVD for The Digital Bits since coming aboard in 1998 and now serves as a Senior Editor. His regular column is Gripe Soda and he's the curator of The Criterion Spines Project. Doogan is also the co-author…